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The latest standalone Iron Man film was a major change of pace from the previous two installments, but it turns out part three was also originally supposed to kill off a main character along the way.

Some new storyboards created by Dan Sweetman for Shane Black’s 2013 sequel show a very different version of Happy’s confrontation with Savin (James Badge Dale) at the Chinese theater in Los Angeles. In the film, Happy is severely injured in the massive explosion that kills dozens of people — but he survives.

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In the storyboards, we learn that things played out very differently in the original script. After being hit by the blast and landing on the ground covered with debris, we see Happy “closing his eyes and dies.” So instead of surviving to eventually provide some intel to Tony (Robert Downey Jr.), Happy would’ve been gone for good. Yeah, that’s a very different turn of events.

Heading into the third film, it stands to reason Marvel might’ve been considering killing off a major side character in the franchise — and it would’ve gone a long way toward showing the stakes of Extremis. So that makes sense in theory. But Happy is awesome, and we’re glad he survived to snark another day.

Check out the storyboard below and let us know if you prefer this version of events: